Crikey that looks familiar. You should have a lower brace put along the sill too... Trust me
Interesting, you mean straight from the main hoop to the front below the door bars? I did think of this at the time but i thought the new chassis rails and new floors would help out with that regard and avoid having more weight put in?
Yes exactly this, heres a picture of my old one
Christ on a bike, glad you're ok as that looks like one hell of a hit! Sideways into a tree or post of some sort?
Really difficult to build the cage to protect for every eventuality but appreciate that an extra bar there may be a good idea. The plan is to send the car back to the fabricator for the RHD bulkhead work sometime early next year so will definitely have the chat with him regarding this to see if we have the space
Its your crash Dan that keeps making me think I should add a cage. Its amazing how far the impact went considering the cage you had in place, also no doubt you would no longer be with us if it wasn't for that cage.
For sure if I had a full cage, I would make sure the door bars are substantial, not much extra weight for the benefit.
Not talking specifically about your car Garaculas, but how far do you go in terms of safety and what 'might' happen before you think sod this, I'll just get in me modern daily and be as safe as houses?
Lost a colleague in a similar crash 30 yrs ago, he was the front seat passenger in a Sierra 2.0 auto. Throttle jammed open on a greasy bend and the car hit a large concrete lamppost. He was about 20-21.
After that previous discovery I was determined to get it fully apart for peace of mind so the strip down continued. One of the good things to check on these is that you’ve got a long nose crankshaft. Despite popular belief not all R33s have them so it’s always worth checking!
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The long flat’s at the engine side of the last shot are the engagement between the oil pump and the crankshaft so we’re definitely long nose!
The tear down continued to getting the cylinder head off to check the pistons and the cylinders.
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Some slight change in the colouring of the valves from front to back but this is to be expected in a straight 6 engine and nothing to be concerned about. The good news is nothing looks to have been sucked into or further through the engine!
The last bit to check is the crank.. I’ve heard nothing but bad things about regrinding crankshafts in high revving performance engines so wanted to make sure this one was AOK before continuing. A replacement might take a very long time to source and cause more ballache further down the road.
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Thankfully more good news that everything looks good, no pickup on any of the bearings and everything looks lubricated and happy! You can see the oil pump engagement a bit clearer in that last photo too.
Once the crank was out I covered it over on the bench and popped everything else back together for the time being.
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Whilst the crank is out I'm going to give it a bit more of a thorough going over just to make sure all is well before popping it back in for safe keeping.
I’m really glad I took the time to this and I love getting to know an engine this thoroughly, good to see the clever engineering that goes in and the peace of mind that we’re good to proceed.
Some of the final checks i could do before rebuild is hardness testing and cylinder wall thickness testing between the bores of the block. Maybe we’ll do this when it’s at the engine builders but with the kind of power we’ll be running, and the fact we don’t have the added strain of the AWD setup, we should be OK.
Now the engine is this far apart it’s rather tempting to get fully forged internals and make it bullet proof for many years to come.. There’s a number of things I’m looking to improve/update/refresh during the rebuild anyway so whilst we’re at it, might as well do it all. Only get to build your dream car once
How much power are you going for again? the stock engine is good for a lot and they are broken with bad ignition components, too much boost and maps. Unless you are dragging it getting the other stuff sorted is worth it. New bottom end shells oil pump etc I'm expecting you are doing
I think we’ll be looking at 400hp low boost and maybe 550hp high boost? Probably would be fine on standard internals but whilst I’m going to the effort of everything else it’s a relatively small cost to forge it for that peace of mind. The current plan for the engine rebuild consists of:
It’s a bit overkill for the power I’m looking at but the aim is to be able to enjoy it without the looming threat of a big rebuild. Also hoping that, with the cams/pulleys/head work, we can tune out some of the low down torque and move the power higher into the Rev range to aid traction, won’t need loads of torque in the little RWD Z
- Prep the block (strip, clean, paint, hone)
- Prep the head (strip, clean, new valve stem seals)
- Clean & rebuild the factory throttle bodies
- CP Forged Pistons (standard size)
- Manley Forged H-Beam Rods (standard size)
- ACL bearings all round
- ATI Super Damper harmonic balancer/crank pulley
- Excedy twin plate clutch
- Balance complete rotating assembly
- Nitto oil pump
- N1 water pump
- Nitto Head Oil restrictor
- Nitto Head drain kit
- ARP Head studs
- Uprated valve springs and retainers
- Complete new gasket and seal set
- Tomei Type B Poncams
- Tomei adjustable cam pulleys
- Single turbo exhaust manifold (6boost, Walton motorsport etc)
- Garrett turbo (G30-660/G30-770)
- Turbosmart External wastegate
- 1000cc injectors (deatschwerks, injector dynamics etc)
- R35 GTR coil pack conversion
- Cam & Crank angle sensor upgrade (PRP, NZ etc)
- New sensors all round
- Haltech Elite 2500 ECU with terminated harness